Restoration

One Man’s Scrap, Another Man’s Gold (July-August 2010)

Well, it has been two busy months since our last column. But no matter how busy we get, we are not too busy to appreciate all you do for us. It is your donations that enable us to do what we do.

For instance, we would not be able to offer families the Cana retreat weeks without all the bedding and household goods you provide. There are still a couple of items needed for this summer: adult-size life jackets and a charcoal barbecue.

At the Cana Colony cook shack (and in many of our buildings) we have refrigerators that are very old and not electrically efficient. We would like to replace them with used refrigerators (15 – 18 cubic feet) in good condition. The families would especially appreciate the frost-free kind.

The staff at St. Mary’s are grateful for the book matches you sent. Now their kitchen needs kettles for boiling water on the stove. These kettles need to have wide bottoms and yet be small enough (10-12 c. size) for older people to lift. The only other thing they need is ant bait traps.

The nurses have a fairly straightforward list of small requests this month. They need ankle braces in all sizes plus some thin ones that go up the calf; Pepto Bismol, regular-size Band-Aids, regular strength Tylenol, wart remover, and sterile gauze pads (2 x 2 or 3 x 3 inches).

If you were to visit our gift shop, we think you’d find it a very enjoyable experience. The shelves sparkle with the items you have donated which are waiting to be sold and the proceeds given to missionaries working with the poor in various parts of the world.

We sell many different kinds of things and these days we are especially looking for bracelets, jewelry chains in all sizes, Russian and Canadian souvenirs, baby spoons and mugs, brass miniatures, medals of little known saints, statues of St. Joseph, and any other religious articles.

And to clean and polish some of these donations, we need silver and brass cleaner.

Also, if anyone has an Avon jewelry catalog (either old or current), it would really help the gift shop staff price jewelry.

The office is low on a number of supplies. They need regular Scotch tape and clear packaging tape, hand-held manual pencil sharpeners, computer paper, legal-size file folders but not the hanging kind as we have a good supply of those.

Here’s a rather specialized request: a can of hornet and wasp killer, the kind used to kill them in their outdoor nests. This is not the ordinary household type of flying insect spray. We already have a sufficient supply of those.

The hornet and wasp killer we need provides a long distance stream of liquid or foam that can reach into the nest without our having to approach too closely. No one likes getting stung!

Several departments have asked for just one thing: Archives would like clear archival photo corners; the laundry needs a supply of good steam irons; our schola (choir) director is asking for violin and mandolin strings; and the farmers need rubber bungee cords, 12 to 16 inches.

Marie-Thérèse McLaughlin, who looks after the cleaning and household supplies for the whole house, says we need bar soap and unscented hand and body lotion. She is discovering that more and more people are allergic to scented products.

While we have been talking about our needs and the needs of our apostolate, we have not forgotten your needs. We continue to pray for you every day, and we welcome any specific prayer requests you want to send us.

We post these requests on a bulletin board near our adoration chapel so that people going in to pray can check and see who needs prayers.

May God’s blessing surround you and your family in all your summer activities.

For more writings from Catherine Doherty and the staff of Madonna House, please visit our non-profit on-line book store, Madonna House Publications. All proceeds from the sale of our books are used to spread the Gospel around the world.